Eli Becker is the employee of Saul Caplan, whose murdee by Eddie Novello Eli solicited through Sal Bonafiglio. Eli was stealing Saul's store to sell for his own illicit profits from being upset he wouldn't inherit his family's share of the business, and when Saul caught Eli, Eli arranged Saul's murder.
Eli fled to Israel under the Right to Return law. As he was adopted by a Jewish family, but a court of rabbis rejected Eli's Jewish upbringing as being a race and legal grounds for asylum. Eli's father Nathan was outraged, but Eli ruined his defense by professing in open court his hatred of the Caplan family for rejecting Eli'a upbringing as grounds to deny him inheritance of the Beckers' share of the store.
Eli took a plea to twenty years in prison so long as he served them in Tel Aviv. (L&O: "Return")